Sokkarem Week 2017
by EvilFuzzy9
Summary: With tongue firmly in cheek, let us celebrate the glory of harems. Sokkarem Week is here again. [Sokka x Harem]
1. Knot

**Sokkarem Week 2017**

An _Avatar the Last Airbender_ fic

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Humor

Characters/Pairings: Sokka, Toph, Yue, Suki, Ty Lee; [Sokka x Harem]

Summary: With tongue firmly in cheek, let us celebrate the glory of harems. Sokkarem Week is here again.

* * *

Sokka's head ached.

"Uh... Can you repeat that?" he asked.

"Certainly," said Yue, smiling apologetically at her boyfriend. She looked back down at the scroll from which she had been reading, and she cleared her throat.

She began to read.

"In refutation of my esteemed colleague's assertions regarding the metaphysical primacy of potential, I here demonstrate the contrary, and prove it according to reason. There can be no potential without first something actual, for the concept of potentiality is coherent only when referring to actualities: as there is potential in ice to become water, and for water to become ice. Both are actualities of the greater form of elemental water, and in both actual water and actual ice are, respectively, the potentials to freeze and melt, or to boil and sublimate.

"Contrary to my colleague's assertions, any man of clear thought can at once recognize the absurdity of claiming potentiality to precede actuality. One need only attempt to imagine potential ice without any actual water to freeze. One can think they are able to conceive of it, but this is invariably a result of unclear thinking. To think of ice that is not but could be, without any water that is which could be frozen to make this potential a reality, is to think illogically. It is contrary to reason and all human experience.

"As the old philosophers say, _'From nothing, there is nothing'._

"Furthermore, we are told by the sages that the universe is eternal, all things continuing forever in a cycle of cosmic creation and destruction. If this is correct, then all things proceed from something, and there has never been a point where there was truly nothing; and it is reasonable to suppose that this is so, for as we have demonstrated prior, and as we quoted above, it is impossible for 'nothing' to cause a change in 'something', or for nonentity to bring forth entities.

"When ice melts, it is because of a flame or the sun: because of external actualities that effect the realization of a specific potentiality within the substance of ice. When ice becomes water, it is to the exclusion of all other potential states. Likewise for when water becomes ice. One can reason backwards through all eternity, but if they reason logically and do not compromise their conclusions with demonstrably false assumptions, then they will never find a point in the endless cycles of creation and destruction when that which is potential preceded that which is actual.

"A potential state can only be in relation to an actual state; you cannot speak of nothingness melting into water or emptiness freezing into ice. Such statements are patent absurdity. Not only are they illogical, but they are in clear contradiction of all empirical evidence. Therefore they are meaningless."

Yue stopped and looked back up. She saw the blank look on Sokka's face. Toph was dozing off, and Ty Lee had begun to perform bodily contortions out of boredom. Only Suki seemed to exhibit some sign of comprehension, and even then it was clearly only with difficulty.

After a moment, looking to either side of her and seeing that the others appeared more or less lost, Suki sheepishly raised her hand, appearing quite aware of her solitude in having even a partial grasp of what Yue was saying.

"I think I kind of get it," she said. "I mean, I think I understand the point of that. A thing is what it is to start with, and whatever it _can_ be, that only comes after what it is. Right?"

"Huh?" muttered Toph, blinking and stirring from her partial doze. "Who said what, now?"

"Well, that's more or less right," Yue said. "Of course this is only a small part of the broader philosophical discussion, but I think it's important to grasp this concept in order to make any practical sense of the world. Without a distinction between act and potency, you can only come to meaningless and improbably simplistic conclusions like 'the universe is all change and permanence is an illusion' or 'the universe is immutable and change is an illusion'. Until you make a clear distinction between what is, what can be, and what is not, you can't really make any philosophical statement about reality without obviously departing from it."

Ty Lee had her head between her legs and her arms behind her back. She was clearly not paying any more attention to this discussion. Toph blearily stared in Yue's general direction, seeming to fight an urge to overtly yawn. She shifted a little and tapped her fingers on the floor.

Suki frowned thoughtfully, biting her lip.

"Uh..." she said, seeming to be once more out of her depth.

Yue sighed and looked at Sokka. He helplessly returned her gaze. It was obvious that he was still trying to wrap his head around some rather earlier step in this train of reasoning, and had not yet arrived anywhere near the most recent station. But he was trying, and that was more than could be said for half the group.

"I'm still a little confused about _form_ ," Sokka confessed. "What does that mean?"

Yue grimaced.

"Well, I suppose we can go over that again..." she said. "But it isn't that difficult a concept. We haven't touched on anything too esoteric or counterintuitive yet."

"Really?" said Ty Lee. "Doesn't feel that way."

"Yeah," Sokka agreed. "I'm trying to wrap my head around this, but... I feel like I'm tying my brain into knots."

"You _would_ ," Toph said, yawning. There was a touch of faux contempt in her voice. She couldn't suppress a cheeky grin. "But if you stopped distracting yourself with dirty thoughts, you could probably get a hang of it."

"You don't seem like you're understanding it any better than I am," Sokka rejoined.

"Right," said Toph. "Because I'm too busy thinking dirty thoughts."

She grinned, and Ty Lee chimed in.

"Yeah! Same here."

She crossed her legs behind her head, cheerfully humming.

Yue looked at Sokka. Her expression was mildly despairing.

He shrugged.

"I don't know. But is this stuff really that important?"

Yue glared. It was a rare sight, and surprisingly formidable.

"It is if you want to justify this preferential treatment," she said, looking askance at the other three women. "If you want to live like you're better than the common person, then you ought to _become_ better. I know you're smart, but you aren't very educated. At least, not by the standards of most... well..."

She trailed off and looked away, a little guilty and unwilling to complete her statement. Sokka's face warmed a little at the implication, but he did not let the immediate emotional response carry him away.

"Fair enough," he said simply.

There was a tangled complex of thoughts and feelings behind this short, unassuming statement. He wanted to make excuses for the state of civilization in his home, and to some extent he knew these excuses were justified. The Fire Nation's constant raiding had essentially crushed the Southern Water Tribe, reducing a once respectable if slightly rustic mirror of the north to an almost Neolithic state, nearly all the products and instruments of progress and prosperity blasted to cinders over a century of consistent and humiliating defeat. But he also knew that a big part of this was caused by considerable disorganization and incompetence during the first couple decades of the war, and the barely defensible positions of the most important cities which led them to be easily sacked and razed.

But he was digressing.

Toph gestured flippantly, kicking up her heels and laying her head in Suki's lap, to the warrior's ineffectual protest.

"In other words," said the earthbender, "Yue wants to fill your head with logic, rhetoric, ethics, history, and all the rest of the humanities, and she won't let the lot of us tie the knot until she's turned you into a proper, stuffy statesman. Poor bastard. You have my sympathy."

She said this, but she sounded fairly amused.

Ty Lee giggled.

Suki looked more genuinely sympathetic.

"Well, I think you have it in you, Sokka," she said. "You're a pretty smart guy. And we're here to help you, if you need it."

Sokka looked from Suki, the leader of a famed militant society founded by a previous avatar, to Ty Lee, the daughter of a minor noble family, to Toph, heiress of one of the world's wealthiest families, to Yue, princess of the ancient and cultured Northern Water Tribe.

He realized that he was probably the least educated person in this room.

His face tingled, and his stomach tied itself in knots.

* * *

A/N: I'm not sure if this chapter turned out as well as I hoped. Not that I think it's bad, but its tie to the prompt is a little weak—rather than a single theme or element uniting the piece, it's tied into the prompt only by various statements and certain imagery throughout. Of course, done well and used to craft an enjoyable bit of literature, that could come across as very artful and clever; but there isn't much to it. If I were to do it over I might write something very different. I probably shouldn't be injecting lengthy tangents of amateurishly explained philosophy into short, 1,500 word one shots. It's unfocused, meandering, and only mildly entertaining.

Yet despite all these self-critical remarks, I'm still posting it as is. Either I'm making a statement, or I'm just being lazy.

So obviously I must be making a statement. (lol)

 **Updated:** 9-28-17

 **TTFN and R &R!**

– — ❤


	2. Makeover

**Sokkarem Week 2017**

An _Avatar the Last Airbender_ fic

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Humor

Characters/Pairings: Sokka, Toph, Yue, Suki, Ty Lee; [Sokka x Harem]

Summary: With tongue firmly in cheek, let us celebrate the glory of harems. Sokkarem Week is here again.

* * *

"I can't tell. Does this look good?"

There was a touch of humor in Toph's voice as she spoke, waving a hand in front of her face. Her cheeks were rosy from a careful application of blush, and her fairly pale complexion had been enhanced with a light powdering. It was an artful mingling of the lily and the rose, beautiful to look upon. She sat crosslegged on the floor, and Suki was kneeling before her, a make up kit at her side.

Suki gave a wry grin, clearly a little amused by Toph's words, despite the staleness of the joke. Toph would say the same thing every time Suki helped her with her make up, drawing on the simple fact that she was blind to lend her requests for 'a second opinion' a certain dry and sarcastic flavor.

"Yes," Suki answered, as much in reply to the joke as to the question. "You look excellent."

"Good," Toph said. "Are you done, then?"

"Oh, dear, no," Suki said, shaking her head. She indulged in a pitying laugh. "We've only begun! There still so much to do. I've picked out a few dresses for you to try, and I really think we should experiment with styling your hair in some different ways. Plus, I want to hear your opinion on a corset. I know you generally dislike that kind of thing, but I'm certain that would do some wonders for you."

Toph's smile became slightly bitter, and she let out a defeated sigh, her hopes critically deflated.

"Darn," she muttered. "You know, Suki, I used to think you were one of the cool ones, but you're actually worse than all the others combined. Yue isn't half as fussy about prettying me up, and she's a princess! I thought you were a rough and tumble warrior sort of woman, but you're actually the biggest girly-girl out of all of us."

Suki chuckled.

"Do you think so?" she said. "But I don't see how that's supposed to be a bad thing. I _am_ a girl, after all. If anything, being a warrior gives me a greater appreciation of what it means to be a woman. Anybody can swing a club and break stuff, but being a woman takes discipline and perseverance."

"Hmph." Toph crossed her arms, a little peevish but not exceptionally bad tempered. "I get being a woman. I mean I don't hate being a girl, or anything like that. My only complaint is, why does being a woman have to include all this stupid _fuss?_ I can clean myself up, you know—I get that nobody wants to suffer somebody else's awful BO. It's just annoying having to do all this junk with make up. It's itchy and cakey and feels uncomfortable on my face."

"You don't mind being covered in dirt, though," Suki observed. "Is that really any more comfortable?"

"I choose to be covered in dirt," said Toph defiantly. "I'm an earthbender. 'S'what I do. Kinda my whole shtick. But I don't like make up. It's always something somebody else is putting on me. And I don't know what the difference between a face covered in dirt and a face covered in make up is. People _say_ the make up 'looks better', but I'm not sure I completely believe them. Why should I trust their judgement?"

"Well, I think make up looks better on you than dirt does," said Suki. "You look gorgeous now. Really, you have such a nice complexion, but you let it go to waste. If I had skin like yours, I would take such better care of it. You don't know how lucky you are."

"I think you have nice skin," Toph replied. "I mean, it feels nice when we—"

"— _Yes_ ," Suki said, her face reddening. "I'm sure it does. But you want to look nice, don't you?"

Toph cocked her head, looking slightly thoughtful.

"I could say I don't care, you know. It's not like I can see myself and say, 'Oh, yeah, I look great now.' All I know is how it feels, and what a pain in the butt it is to do all this make up."

"Yet you still ask me to help give you a makeover," Suki observed.

Toph smiled.

"It's nice to have something to complain about," she said. "We can all agree on that, right?"

"That's a matter of opinion," said Suki. She clicked her tongue. "But whether you complain or not, I think you look good, and I think the make up does a lot to bring out your natural appeal."

"Sure. If you say so," said Toph dubiously.

"Well, consider it this way," Suki said, leaning in close. "When you get a makeover, it attracts Sokka's interest. Even if the concept of 'looks' is meaningless to you, I think you know very well what a lover's redoubled interest feels like."

Toph grinned.

"Hah! You know just how to get past my defenses," she said. "Yeah. Fair enough. I like that."

"Heh. I figured you would say that," said Suki, smiling. "Now that we've got that debate out of the way, then, I want to ask you again about that corset..."

"Hey, now, I didn't agree to _that!_ " Toph exclaimed. "I agreed to make up, but I didn't say anything about wearing some kind of torture device!"

"But it will look great on you, I'm sure of it," Suki said. "Besides, I don't mean you should wear it 24/7. Heaven forbid! I just mean it might be nice for our next group date, you know, to put you in something low-cut and really emphasize your figure."

"Why don't _you_ wear the corset, then, if you think it will make you look better?"

"I said it would help you. I didn't say anything about myself."

Toph huffed, still apparently a tad annoyed by this.

"Will Sokka like it?" she asked at length. Her tone was sullen.

"That depends," said Suki sarcastically. "Do you think he likes boobs?"

Toph laughed. This remark seemed to cheer her considerably.

"Of course he does," she said. "He's a man, after all."

Her lips were curved in a playful grin. There was something of pleasant consideration in her expression.

Suki elbowed Toph, and she leaned in to slyly ask:

"So about the corset..."

"Yeah," Toph said. "Let's try it on. Just for the date, though. I'm sure it'll be the least comfortable thing I've ever worn."

"But if all goes well," said Suki, "You'll only be wearing it for a couple hours."

Toph cackled.

"I like the way you think! Hehe, that makes it sound a lot better."

"Yes, I thought it would," said Suki, her eyes glinting. "Now, let's get you undressed..."

With a smile, Toph readily complied.

* * *

A/N: Here's chapter two, or the second installment. I'd say it's turned out rather better than the previous. Talking about boobs improves almost anything, I suppose. XD

 **Updated:** 9-29-17

 **TTFN and R &R!**

– — ❤


	3. Naked

**Sokkarem Week 2017**

An _Avatar the Last Airbender_ fic

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Humor

Characters/Pairings: Sokka, Toph, Yue, Suki, Ty Lee; [Sokka x Harem]

Summary: With tongue firmly in cheek, let us celebrate the glory of harems. Sokkarem Week is here again.

* * *

It was hot. Indeed, it was unseasonably warm.

Sokka waved a hand, fanning his face. He sat on his backside, bare and brown, looking up at a merciless sun. He was absolutely dripping with sweat. It was misery, manifest hell on earth. He felt like he was burning alive. Even the sea rolling against the shore, the vast waters he had grown up thinking of as icy death, seemed to reflect the sun's blazing intensity.

How the heck could it possibly get so dang hot?

Sokka, panting, looked to his side, to Yue, who was equally naked and equally drenched. They sat on the porch of the vacation retreat, both of them wondering how the people of the Fire Nation could stand to live in this torrid nightmare realm.

Yue shared an equally unhappy, uncomprehending look with Sokka. Neither of them could understand this. They were members of the Water Tribe, who had grown up reasonably happily in the frigid extremities, the farthest icy wastes of the world. They were used to temperatures where you couldn't go outside without being swaddled from head to toe, where falling in the water or sleeping outside meant almost certain death of cold.

Of course, Sokka was well-traveled and used to a wide variety of temperatures. To his shame, upon first returning home after the war, he had discovered the discovered the bitter cold to be nearly unbearable. It had taken a while for his blood to thicken back up, and for his sinews to toughen until they were once resistant to freezing, and he still hadn't quite reclaimed his former fortitude.

But Yue had never before left the arctic circle. She was still naturally acclimated to the environs of the North Pole, and while as the princess she had possessed comforts of higher quality than those of a number of her subjects, including a hearth and wood fire for nights of particularly awful cold, nonetheless she was Water Tribe born and bred. Part of that—a very big part, some would argue—meant having a high tolerance for low temperatures, and as a corollary it also a meant having a low tolerance for high temperatures.

Sokka and Yue sat on the porch, naked under a blazing sun. Sokka ran the back of a hand over his brow, and it came away slick with sweat. He sighed wearily. Yue, beside him, leaned back and groaned, her chest heaving.

Ty Lee sat beside them, dressed in her usual fashion.

"What's the matter?" she asked innocently. "Are you two having some naked party?"

Gray eyes gleamed, and a cheerful face positively glowed. Ty Lee grinned and wiggled her hips, looking interestedly at Sokka and Yue. Under other circumstances, coming from another person, this gaze might have been deemed lascivious. But from Ty Lee, in this situation, it merely felt friendly and a little teasing. She was ribbing them, and there wasn't anything untoward in her appraisal of their nude forms.

Not that there would technically be any impropriety if there were. There was nothing in the traditions of either the Fire Nation or the Water Tribe to contradict the basic premise of this relationship. But that was irrelevant to this situation, save as a mild curiosity.

Mainly, they were focused on the temperature.

"It's _hot_ ," Sokka said, continuing to fan himself, stooping and looking unsophisticated as only a man could. Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose.

"Yes," panted Yue, nearly lying on her back. She placed a hand over her stomach. "How can you handle this, Ty Lee?"

"Eh? What, the heat?" said Ty Lee, bemused. "But it isn't really that hot. We don't get the _real_ heat until late in summer. That's when you start to roast alive if you go outside. But right now I think it's nice out. We're barely out of spring."

Yue and Sokka stared, clearly astonished by Ty Lee's remark. They exchanged disbelieving looks with one another.

"You're kidding, right?" Sokka said. "You can't be serious."

Ty Lee cocked her head.

"Why not?" she asked. "It isn't all that hot, for this time of year. And it will be getting a lot hotter, I'm sure."

Sokka and Yue looked so dismayed at this that the bubbly, optimistic Ty Lee couldn't help but laugh.

"Oh, it isn't that bad!" she insisted. "You'll get used to it soon enough. And once it gets _really_ hot, we can be naked together. Maybe I'll invite Toph and Suki and Azula to join us."

Sokka colored at this suggestion, less out of serious misgivings or modesty than just embarrassment at Ty Lee's flippant comments. He gave her a mildly dirty look. She welcomed it with feigned innocence.

"Maybe it isn't that hot for you," Yue conceded, sounding mildly breathless. "But for us, this temperature is completely unreasonable. I can't bear it."

"But you're perfectly happy to bare it," quipped Ty Lee. "Eh?"

Sokka sniggered while Yue groaned, both reacting to the shameless pun.

"You're stealing my best material," Sokka said, wiping a tear from his eye. He looked at Ty Lee warmly. "I'm so proud."

The acrobat beamed.

Yue glowered.

"Oh, don't encourage her," she said peevishly.

"Why not? I thought you liked my jokes," Sokka said. "Half my material is just puns, and the other half is dirty jokes."

"I don't like either of those, by themselves," Yue replied. "Obviously, I only like your sense of humor because it's _yours_. Coming from anyone else it's awful. Coming from _you_ it's awful, but I like you, so I think you're funny."

"That sounds backwards," Sokka said. He frowned, pouting a little exaggeratedly. "I thought you liked me BECAUSE of my sense of humor!"

"You thought wrong," said Ty Lee with good cheer. She patted him on the back. "I think she likes you for shallower reasons than that."

She smiled, crinkling her eyes. Self consciously Sokka looked downward. Then he turned and met Yue's. She smiled at him, but she appeared to flush and falter under his gaze, and she had soon averted her stare.

Sokka looked down. He too soon found it difficult to meet his partner's eyes, and he turned his face away.

"Um, okay," he said, clearly conceding this point.

There was a moment of awkward silence. Sokka and Yue sat on the porch beside Ty Lee, look out over the private beach. She had talked Zuko into letting them borrow it, and he had agreed readily enough. The new Fire Lord had more important things than leisure to concern himself with, and he was on friendly terms with Sokka, anyways. He didn't remotely mind letting the guy use the place, so long as he didn't make a mess of it.

It was a private beach, but that didn't mean there wasn't anybody who might walk through. There were staff who were kept on year round to keep the place nice, tending the gardens and cleaning the house and clearing away driftwood and other debris. And while this part of the island was reserved mainly for use by the royal family, there was commerce and steady living on the other side of it, a community and an economy built up almost solely for the purpose of supporting the Fire Lord and his guests on the rare occasions that they visited.

And there were more public resorts on the island—at least relatively speaking. While the Fire Nation had an entrenched nobility and traditional aristocracy, it also had a strong culture of industry and capitalism. While the Fire Lord was a fairly conventional autocrat, and the social framework was ostensibly a traditional and hierarchical one, in truth there was a great deal of social mobility in the modern Fire Nation. Before its military might was turned to the subjugation of most of the world, the Fire Nation had been essentially a country of merchants.

Somewhat paradoxically, if you only looked at their name, the people of the Fire Nation were superlative sailors and shipbuilders. From early times they had mastered the art of navigating the high seas, and only a secure and reliable network of shipping lanes could have united this archipelagic country. And maritime trade was a long and dear tradition of this people. In addition, the spread of these peoples over numerous islands historically made it difficult for the Fire Lords to impose any kind of absolutist despotism. It was difficult to confiscate from the peasantry when there were wide waters and potential storms between the capital and its taxes. The unification of the Fire Nation was a relatively recent occurence, and there remained in most of its people a streak of defiance and independence.

It had surprised Sokka when he first discovered it, but in contrast to the grim and oppressive shadow the Fire Nation had cast over much of the world, its people had a remarkably egalitarian spirit. They were pioneers and innovators, and many of them probably hated the former Fire Lords as much as did anyone in the Water Tribe or the Earth Kingdom. There was a stark cultural divide between the masses and the elite, the former being scattered and historically far removed from central control while the latter mostly from the lands around the capital, where the presence of the Fire Lord could be felt. Even a century of systematic indoctrination couldn't break these people of all their better qualities, and one thing that had bled into the central command from increased contact with more remote and rural denizens of the nation, well before that, had been the concept of free trade and personal property.

Indeed, it was the adoption of those two ideas that had really put the Fire Nation so far ahead of the rest of the world in the first place. When the average citizen could be relatively certain of the security of their production—that if they made more they would have more to keep for themselves, instead of simply being taxed back down into barest subsistence—they began to think of growing their wealth and putting it to use, instead of simply hiding or consuming it. Farmers and craftsmen began looking for ways to seriously improve their production, and merchants invested in risky ventures with the hope of big payoffs. The standard of living in the Fire Nation, by the time Sozin was born, had increased substantially in a very short span of time, and even the poorest citizens at that time ate better than nearly all but the wealthiest people in other lands.

And this was to say nothing of the technologies that had been born of this cultural revolution. Needless to say, the result had been a mixture of an admirable desire to share this prosperity with the rest of the world and a baser temptation to ply their newfound advantages, eventually funding a century-long war with their amassed wealth and dominating most of the rest of the world with vastly superior weapons and armor.

There was something almost comically tragic about the fact that the early successes of the Fire Nation's war had been credited to the centralized authority of the Fire Lord, when in reality the first checks in the Fire Nation's advance had come from the bureacracy and meddling politicians. Sozin had been a great man in his own complicated way, but he had been absolutely clueless about the fundamental principles underlying the disparity between his country and the rest of the world. This belief led to an inflation of the government, channeling more and more power into the Fire Lord until he had gained a dictatorial authority over even the historically independent island territories. He ended the de facto laissez-faire policies of his predecessors, brought his people under increasingly tighter and more intrusive control, and infected the ranks of the military command with power plays and bootlicking.

Sozin turned himself into an almost godlike figure, and the people ignorantly fell to their knees in worship of the power their own hands had created, not understanding that in doing so they were giving it all up. It was difficult for Sokka to imagine, but although the Fire Nation had continued to make advances, it began to stagnate as it became more rigid and centralized and despotic. By the end of the war it had became almost as repressive and stratified a society as the Earth Kingdom, which maintained tranquility by crushing all change and challenges to tradition, and as a result it had been running mostly on momentum. The treasuries had been depleted by a decrease of tax revenue from sharply rising tax rates, and the once formidable and intrepid spirit of the people had nearly been snuffed. Only extensive propaganda had been able to keep them under control, and the effect of that had been to dull their minds and almost kill the liberal dynamism which had been the source of all their success to begin with.

Sokka blinked. He suddenly realized that he had been staring at Ty Lee's chest after removing his eyes from Yue's.

The girl smiled at him, clearly amused by the intentness of his gaze.

"Hehe," she giggled. "Were you imagining me naked?"

Sokka would have answered honestly, but he knew she wouldn't believe it.

So he shrugged and said:

"Yeah."

Ty Lee laughed.

* * *

A/N: This one ran a bit long, but here I think the tangent actually contributes something of substance by creating an incongruity that leads into and strengthens the punchline. Plus, it was interesting to spend a few paragraphs postulating and pontification on the hypothetical socioeconomic conditions of the Fire Nation. If there's one weakness to AtLA, it's that it presents a relatively simplistic moral conflict—although this is also its strength, lending the series a romantic and relatively universal quality that gives it broad appeal.

But since I've been reading up on history and economics and stuff like that, I naturally wound up spontaneously considering the underlying causes of the Fire Nation's military and technological ascendance in the series, and after comparing it to real life history and considering a half-remembered map of the Avatar world, I conclude that the Fire Nation began with a relatively free citizenry and a robust maritime trade that led to material prosperity and intellectual breathing room, which in turn contributed to a scientific revolution. And when they realized that they had a massive advantage over the rest of the world, they did what basically every civilization in a similar situation has done throughout history and proceeded to conquer, exploit, and finally degenerate into a despotic tyranny that slowly choked away the very things that had enabled the civilization to succeed so incredibly in the first place.

Also, nekkid bewbs or something, because I am still so very immature. XD

 **Updated:** 9-30-17

 **TTFN and R &R!**

– — ❤


	4. Clever

**Sokkarem Week 2017**

An _Avatar the Last Airbender_ fic

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Humor

Characters/Pairings: Sokka, Toph, Yue, Suki, Ty Lee; [Sokka x Harem]

Summary: With tongue firmly in cheek, let us celebrate the glory of harems. Sokkarem Week is here again.

* * *

"You think you're real clever, don't you?"

Sokka blinked and looked up. He saw Ty Lee and Toph facing him. He frowned, mildly bemused. Ty Lee's expression was unusally almost serious, and Toph was doing a very good job of glowering.

"Um," he said. "What?"

"Don't play dumb. You know what we're talking about."

"I really don't," Sokka insisted. "I don't really think I'm all that clever." He then paused, considering. "Well... okay. Yeah, I do think that. But what does it matter? I _am_ pretty clever, right?"

Toph crossed her arms over her chest. Ty Lee planted her hands on her hips.

"Did you think we wouldn't figure it out?" asked the former.

"We aren't stupid," added the latter. "We can tell."

Sokka drew a blank. He was pretty sure he had no idea what they were talking about, now. They had found their way right back to square one, none of them any the wiser for this exhange.

"I'm confused," he admitted. "Could you be more specific?"

Toph's mouth tightened into a thin line. Ty Lee glared veritable daggers. Both seemed to loom dangerously close, and Sokka, who had been in the process of polishing his club, hesitantly set aside the soiled cloth and relinquished his grip of the implement. He felt a twinge of fear.

Had he done something? He wondered if he had forgotten an important date. He cast his mind back, struggling to find some clue in his memory. But trawl as he might through his memories, the nets came up every time empty of anything meaningful. He could recall nothing that might have left these two in such a black-seeming mood. That fact only increased his distress. Like any sensible man, he feared injuring or insulting or disappointing his lovers. He looked from Ty Lee to Toph, from Toph to Ty Lee, trying to uncover some tell in their mien which might reveal to him the source of their present offense.

This was doubly perplexing because neither of these two were what Sokka would have considered touchy. Ty Lee had a few self esteem issues, and Toph was generally coarse and abrasive, but neither of them seemed the type to get like this without some very real and significant cause. Ty Lee was too cheerful and easygoing, and Toph was too generally thick-skinned. If they were angry—and they _seemed_ angry—then surely there must be a good cause for it. He couldn't believe they would glare like this for no serious reason.

"Don't play stupid," said Ty Lee. "You know what you did."

"No, no," Sokka said. "I really don't."

This statement only caused them to glare harder, so he quickly shut his mouth.

"You thought we wouldn't be able to tell," Toph said, beginning to pace back and forth. "You thought we would just accept whatever you told us at face value."

"But you were wrong," Ty Lee said. "We were able to tell right away. You couldn't trick us that easily. We saw right through your ruse."

"Yeah. This situation is very convenient for you, isn't it? You get to enjoy several beautiful ladies at once, and you get to have them fawning over you like you're some big, strong, impressive man."

"But you aren't. Not by that much. Not enough to let you get away with this."

Sokka's ego stung a little at this, but what struck him more was the other implication of their claim. In some respects, maybe, it reflected reality. Certainly this was an accurate description of at least one facet of their relationship, but it was misleading in that it created the impression that this was the ONLY side of the discussion.

But it did give him something to latch onto, that Toph and Ty Lee spoke about their relationship. It lent him a much more solid conception of what might be the matter, and why they were apparently so unhappy with him. It was something he could try to work with, at any rate.

"Whoa, that's not fair," Sokka interjected. "You're making it sound like this arrangement was all my idea, but it was you guys who talked me into it. If it weren't for you two and Yue and Suki, we would be a couple... or, uh, all in a relationship. But it's not like I'm the only person who had anything to gain from it. You girls were ready to rip each other apart until you decided to stop fighting and settle your differences."

Ty Lee's eyes flashed.

"Right!" she said. "And that was all according to your plan, wasn't it? You played the lot of us against each other, charming us and seducing us until we were almost ready to fight to the death for the right to have you to ourselves."

"And then, when things were getting to their most violent," added Toph, "you convinced Yue to suggest a truce to the rest of us, and you offered to make her your most important wife if she convinced us to compromise and get romantic with each other as well as with you."

"...What?" Sokka said, once more bemused.

It had seemed like things were starting to reach a point where he could make sense of this whole matter—presumably something had happened to at least temporarily sour Toph and Ty Lee on the whole harem arrangement, and so they had decided to join forces and rake him over the coals for it, even if this was greatly disregarding their own agency in the whole deal. But now they pulled out this conspiratorial absurdity, and he found himself once more adrift in a sea of utter confusion.

"Don't play dumb," said Toph. "We know what you did."

"Trust me," Sokka said. "I'm not playing dumb. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I never told Yue to do anything like that. You guys worked it out for yourselves. I didn't know what was happening until you all approached me with the news that you wanted to set up a special relationship, that all four of you wanted to be my wives."

Ty Lee rolled her eyes.

"Oh, is _that_ what you think we're talking about?" she asked him with uncharacteristic ice. "Well, it isn't."

Sokka felt ready to tear out his hair.

"But—I— _that's literally what you were saying!_ " he cried out in exasperation.

"Was it? We must have misspoken, then," said Toph.

But this time she couldn't quite tamp down her real emotions. The stony facade crumbled, if only for an instant, and Sokka glimpsed a twitch of mirth in the curve of her lips. She very briefly smiled, like one who was trying very hard to stifle a fit of laughter.

Something clicked. Sokka's frustration and bewilderment were almost instantly dissipated, and he stared at the two girls with renewed comprehension.

Now that he looked again, he saw that their anger was largely an affectation. It was superficial, and although the first shock of seeing it had put him on the defensive and distracted him from noticing the undercurrent of willful mischief, now it was as if scales had fallen from his eyes.

He saw with perfect clarity.

"Oh," he said. "So that's how it is?"

There was a moment of silence. Toph and Ty Lee didn't seem to realize that Sokka was now on to them.

Half grim, half jubilant, Sokka grabbed the two and tackled them to the ground. They gasped, squealed, and burst out into laughter as he started to kiss and tickle them.

"You jerks!" he said. "You almost had me going, for a moment there. Were you trying to give me a heart attack?"

The two were too busy squirming and giggling to answer.

Sokka grinned and fondly grappled them.

If they wanted to play that way, he would gladly return the favor.

Victoriously, amusedly, he growled and kissed them.

They happily admitted defeat.

* * *

A/N: This is an odd one, but I had fun writing it. Can't think of much to add to that.

 **Updated:** 10-1-17

 **TTFN and R &R!**

– — ❤


	5. Snack

**Sokkarem Week 2017**

An _Avatar the Last Airbender_ fic

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Humor

Characters/Pairings: Sokka, Toph, Yue, Suki, Ty Lee; [Sokka x Harem]

Summary: With tongue firmly in cheek, let us celebrate the glory of harems. Sokkarem Week is here again.

* * *

"Here, darling. Have this."

Yue produced a plate of snow plums and pickled sea prunes, setting it before Sokka. She smiled serenely, looking decidedly proud of herself.

"No, have _this_ ," said Suki, laying down a tray set with rice crackers and jerky. "I know you'll like this better."

Sokka, who was kneeling before the table, looked from one girlfriend to the other. He had merely suggested tea, and he had half intended to prepare it himself. But both women had insisted that he needn't do anything. Both of them appeared to think it was their prerogative, as his girlfriends, to prepare this meal. And they were thus competing with one another, each of them intent on proving to have a superior understanding of his tastes and a greater ability to prepare a meal.

Not that Sokka minded this. He was egalitarian, and he believed that men and women were essentially equal, but he was still kind of a traditionalist. Even back when he had held the belief that men were fighters and women should stay out of war, his opinion hadn't at its root been a matter of contempt for women—although in its expression he had often come across as rudely dismissive—but rather a conviction in the male responsibility to protect them. While his experience with the Kyoshi Warriors and other badass chicks had convinced him that women were capable of matching men in combat, this did not overwrite his underlying cultural beliefs.

His observations throughout his travels had actually, to a certain extent, vindicated his old convictions. Women could be fighters, but most women did not seem to _want_ to fight. Even in cultures where there was no real bias against female soldiers, the armies seemed to be predominantly comprised of men. It wasn't that the system, so far as he had seen, actively prevented women from joining the military, as it was that most women simply didn't want to fight in the same way or at the same frequency that men did. Men were simply more aggressive, more reckless with their own lives, more readily moved by violent passions and patriotism. Men were more likely to decide to enlist, more likely to feel a visceral responsibility to fight.

Men were hunters, men were soldiers. This was something that Sokka had seen throughout his travels. There were individual exceptions to the rule, and with many of them he had become personally acquainted, but for the vast majority of humanity it seemed to be a fairly consistent thing, even in wildly diverse cultures. Kyoshi's Island was one of the few places where women were encouraged to be warriors, and even here this tradition was rooted in a cultic veneration of the extraordinary figure of Avatar Kyoshi, rather than in any belief that it was easier or more effective to train women to be warriors. Their weapons, style of fighting, and tactics all expressed an essential comprehension of the physical differences between men and women.

This was a tacit, universal understanding.

Sokka looked from the plums and sea prunes to the crackers and jerky. He couldn't decide which looked better. Both appeared quite good, and he wasn't in a specific mood that might bias him for one or against the other. But he hesitated out of awareness of the slight tension. Yue and Suki both clearly had something to prove. He could almost picture the dispute that might have arisen between them.

Yue might have insisted on doing the cooking herself, perhaps insinuating that Suki probably did not have much in the way of domestic skills. Suki, rankling at this as she would at any other accusation of inadequacy, may have retorted that a sheltered princess like Yue could hardly have grown up cooking her own food. He imagined the two of them exchanging heated glares, Suki and Yue each daring the other to give them an excuse. From here, it was very easy to envision how they might have then descended into competition. Each of them wanted to prove the other wrong, and neither of them wanted to admit that the other might have had at least a partial point.

The fruits of their contest seemed, to Sokka, to show that both were quite respectably capable. Admittedly, there wasn't much cooking involved in this, but the arrangement of the snacks and the choice of the particular foods suggested, to him, at least a certain degree of talent and understanding. Of course he was far from a gourmet, and he probably didn't have terribly high culinary standards. But to him the assortment looked pretty good, and he saw no reason to complain about it.

Sokka looked at Suki and Yue. Both were eyeing him expectantly.

He looked back down at the twin trays, the snacks they presented him.

He wondered how to solve this dilemma.

"Um," he said slowly. "That looks good."

"Does it?" said Yue. She smiled, and with glinting eyes she peered at Suki. "I'm glad to hear that. But which do you think is better?"

Sokka stiffened, unsure what to say.

"Yeah," Suki added. She pouted a little cutely. "What do you think looks tastier, Sokka?"

He did not speak right away. He had no idea how to answer this question, so he hemmed and hawed and stroked his chin, buying time without any plan beyond delaying his answer as long as possible.

"Well," he said. _"Well._ That's a good question. At least, I think it's a good question, but maybe you think otherwise. Except, why would you ask unless you thought it was a question worth asking? It's only worth asking if you think you'll get an answer, and an answer is only worth expecting if—"

"Sokka," said Yue, now looking a little amused. "Please, calm down. You look like you're going to have a heart attack."

"Yeah," Suki concurred. She smiled. "It's not that big a deal. We just thought it would be nice to know."

"I-Is that so?" said Sokka hesitantly. "Then, you don't care which I pick?"

Their smiles were innocent. That very innocence only increased Sokka's anxiety.

"Of course," they said as one.

Sokka profoundly doubted their sincerity.

* * *

A/N: Here's another short and kind of silly one.

 **Updated:** 10-2-17

 **TTFN and R &R!**

– — ❤


	6. Onsen

**Sokkarem Week 2017**

An _Avatar the Last Airbender_ fic

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Humor

Characters/Pairings: Sokka, Toph, Yue, Suki, Ty Lee; [Sokka x Harem]

Summary: With tongue firmly in cheek, let us celebrate the glory of harems. Sokkarem Week is here again.

* * *

Sokka moaned luxuriantly, sinking into the hot, steaming water. His eyelids fluttered shut, and with a gasp and a hiss he submerged his aching muscles. He stared up into the sky with a feeling of bliss, and his very bones seemed to melt in his relaxation. He sighed.

There was a soft splashing sound, and he felt the water roll and swell about him as if at the sudden introduction of multiple different bodies. He knew what this was, and he had of course anticipated it, but he cracked an eye open nonetheless to glimpse his fellow bathers.

Toph leaned against the stone sides of the hot spring, her naked form sinking halfway into the water. She gripped the ground with a little apprehension as she lowered herself into the water, before finally her feet touched bottom and she released a sigh of relief. Her physique was impressive, her body lean and her bosom modestly sized. She had a fair amount of muscle on her, giving her a wiry, somewhat stocky quality. Her fair complexion colored in the heat of the onsen, and her eyes, as milky and opaque as the water, stared sightlessly across the surface.

Next to Toph was Suki, who rested her chin amid her crossed arms, sighing and leaning against the rim of the spring, the sheer edge where the ground abruptly plummeted into the water. Her back was to Sokka, and he looked at the curve of her spine, her excellent posture, and he envisioned her chest pressing against the side of the spring. Her hips disappeared under the water, and Sokka was tempted to go up and greet her with a close embrace. Suki seemed to be aware of his inner struggle, because she smirked and wryly peered at him over her shoulder.

Yue drifted regally into the water, her form brown and voluptuous, soft and smooth and nearly divine. Her dazzlingly blue eyes were half-lidded in the peaceful euphoria of a deliciously hot soak, and her heaving bosom bobbed in the water, sending waves and ripples with every slight shift of her body. She looked around herself with contentment, and smiling she surveyed her fellow lovers. Her lips were luscious, and the curve of her peaceable, affectionate grin sent thrills of delight through those who saw it. Even Toph appeared to experience the effect of Yue's smile.

Ty Lee floated on her belly, a ruddy backside bobbing above the surface. She did not paddle or swim about, knowing this would be terribly rude, but she did enjoy herself as much as was permissible by courtesy, too lively and vivacious to content herself merely with a quiet, sedate soak. Her face was red, and she caught Sokka's eye with a faintly playful expression. She wiggled her hips, causing a mild splash. Sokka watched her with a mixture of pleasure and exasperation.

The five of them soaked together in the hot spring, unconcerned about modesty. It would be silly for them to make a big deal about the fact that they were naked. There were no secrets between them, and there was nothing for them to hide from one another in either mind or body. They knew each other inside and out—about as thoroughly as it was possible for anyone to know anyone. They were intimately acquainted, because of course they were. It would make little sense in this sort of polygamous relationship, this harem of mutual affections, for any of them to be strangers, or for them to need any kind of modesty around each other.

Sokka sighed and leaned back, drawing in a deep breath. His chest swelled, and his arms flexed, and those who could see greatly appreciated the effect. As for Toph, she was compensated by a clear and continuous perception of the other four's bodies, even and especially where this was outside the reach of the others.

The earthbender wore a cocky grin, as a consequence.

"How are you doing? Does it feel better, now?"

It was Suki who spoke, still leaning against the rim of the hot spring.

"It feels a lot better," Sokka said, absently rubbing his back. He grunted, digging his fingers in where the muscles were still knotted up, and he rolled it around. He shuddered at the pain of it, and he sighed in the perverse but profound relief of a massage.

Ty Lee, seeing this, shifted in the water so that she was standing up. She looked at Sokka and waded over to him, bobbing in the water. Sokka couldn't help but raptly watch her approach, and he swallowed. Despite his self massage, he now felt stiffer than ever.

"That looks uncomfortable," Ty Lee said, her eyes brightly twinkling. "Do want me to rub it for you?"

Toph sniggered. Suki chuckled. Yue giggled in spite of herself.

Sokka blushed and cleared his throat.

"If you want," he said, acting like it wasn't really a big deal.

Ty Lee smiled.

"Are you sure?" she asked him. "It might hurt a little, at first."

"I think he'd like that," quipped Toph.

"Maybe as long as it ends up feeling good," added Suki moderately. Her tone was just a little bit sly.

"Yeah, that sounds right," said Sokka. "Will it feel good?"

"Oh, yes," said Ty Lee. "I'll rub you until you're thrashing and moaning, and I'll keep on rubbing you even if you beg me to stop, and I won't quite until I've got you limp and loose and noodly. I'll make you feel real good."

Her eyes twinkled.

"Will you do me after you've done him?" asked Yue pleasantly. "I think I'd like to be rubbed a little bit as well."

"I can do you while Giggles is doing Sokka," said Toph. "Though I'll be pretty rough."

"Would you be able to be at least a little gentle?" Yue asked.

Suki laughed.

"You know she wouldn't!"

Yue smiled. She saw Toph grin savagely.

"Yes, I suppose I do," she mused.

They looked at Sokka, who watched Ty Lee, and all of them felt quite cheerful.

Ty Lee stopped in front of Sokka, and her hands disappeared underwater.

Sokka seized up.

"That's not my back," he said.

"Yeah," purred Ty Lee. "I know."

The others whistled.

Sokka grinned. A groan escaped him, and his head lolled back on his shoulders.

"Well, as long you know what you're doing..."

He sighed.

It was a good way to unwind.

* * *

A/N: Haha, I've been trying to avoid cheap raunchy humor with most of this, but I couldn't resist it with this chap. :P

 **Updated:** 9-3-17

 **TTFN and R &R!**

– — ❤


	7. Mastermind

**Sokkarem Week 2017**

An _Avatar the Last Airbender_ fic

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Humor

Characters/Pairings: Sokka, Toph, Yue, Suki, Ty Lee; [Sokka x Harem]

Summary: With tongue firmly in cheek, let us celebrate the glory of harems. Sokkarem Week is here again.

* * *

Azula sat in her cell, arms bound behind her back and hair falling in a mess about her head. She smiled with a sort of vicious serenity, staring into the distance and holding her head slightly crookedly. There was an overall slant in the way she held herself, a contemptuous indolence expressed by how she leaned back and crossed her legs. Despite her condition and her situation, despite her bedraggled appearance and the circumstances of her confinement in this remote sanatorium, she still held herself with all the pride of a Fire Lord.

Her eyes flickered to the thin slat in the door. She had heard the footsteps approaching, and now she saw the eyes which peered through into her cell. It was a viewport that blocked off the visitor's face, preventing her from easily identifying them. Azula found this amusing, and a welcome distraction from the tedium of hysteria. It was a pleasant way of passing the time, to try and deduce the identities of her visitors by tuning out their voices and focusing solely on their eyes. Dear Zuzu was easy to recognize, with his scar and the stress marks. Mai and Ty Lee were similarly familiar.

But most of her visitors were sanatorium staff, and these were more challenging to try and place. Most of them had brown or gray eyes, and were not so familiar to her as to be known on sight. These eyes which now looked in on her, though, were blue.

Azula was bemused by this. She wondered if her visitor was a mongrel, or an actual Water Tribe savage. She didn't know which would be worse.

"Who are you?" she asked, her voice hoarse and cracking from disuse.

She didn't expect an answer, of course. The staff never gave their names. Not their real names, at least. They usually just told her that they were 'doctor' this or 'nurse' that. They always said they were here to help her, but they never offered to smuggle her out or assist in raising an army or assassinating her brother. They were entirely disinterested in helping her reclaim the throne, and this was the only help she wanted.

Useless.

There were no loyal subjects, anymore. Nobody willing to obey her orders. Nobody worthy of her trust. They were all out to get her, really. It was so obvious that even a total fool had to see it.

The so-called doctors pretended not to know about the plot. They were liars. They said that nobody was out to get her, that nobody was interested in marginalizing or repressing her. There was no malfeasance behind her incarceration, they said. She was here for her own good.

Sexists. Obviously they only did this because she was a woman. It wasn't her fault. She had done nothing wrong.

She was innocent.

None of it was _her_ fault.

"I'm Sokka."

The words broke into Azula's dark ruminations, startling her back into a semblance of mental clarity. She blinked and stared at the eyes, confused.

Sokka...

Why did that name sound vaguely familiar?

"Who are you?" she asked again, frowning. Her expression was now dour, her prior haughty confidence cast aside in a sudden mistrust.

"I... I'm Sokka," he said. He seemed uncertain how else to answer her question. He spoke a little louder, repeating himself, apparently thinking she must be deaf.

"I don't believe I know any Sokka," Azula said. "And you sound too young to be one of the doctors. Who are you?"

Her stubbornly repeated question appeared to give the speaker pause.

"One of Aang's friends," he said. "I traveled with—with the avatar. You know? I was the guy with the boomerang."

Azula remembered, now. She recalled the face of the young water tribesman, a reasonably attractive specimen. She could see him in her mind's eye.

She looked at the pair of eyes peering in through the door. She inquiringly cocked her head.

A thought struck. She considered what she would be doing if their situations were reversed.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him. "Do you think that because I'm locked up like a wild animal, you can come and take me for yourself?"

"Huh?" said Sokka. He sounded surprised by her statement.

"I am royalty," said Azula simply. "I am the rightful Fire Lord. Do you think that just because my brother deposed me, you can come here to take me as a concubine?"

Sokka blinked.

"My... my what?"

"Don't play dumb," Azula said. "What other purpose could a crude barbarian like yourself think to make of me?"

Sokka seemed to frown. There was a hint of a furrowed brow.

"I don't—I'm not here to do anything like that. I just, I thought it would be useful to visit."

"Why?" she asked. "In what regard?"

"I'm not so sure, now," he admitted. "I guess I thought you might be able to give me some advice."

Now it was Azula's turn to be taken aback. She cocked an eyebrow, and she wondered what kind of face Sokka was making. It was so bothersomely difficult to guess people's thoughts and motives when you couldn't see their face or know their body language.

"What advice could I give that would possibly be of interest to you?" she asked dryly. "Certainly, I'm knowledgeable in many subjects, but I can't imagine most of those would be terribly useful for you."

"Well, you're a princess," Sokka said. "So... you know... princess stuff, right? I thought you could help me figure something out. My, er... my girlfriend, you see... Yue, princess of the Northern Water Tribe, she's come to me with this crazy idea, and I don't know if it's normal for royalty, but I figured I could ask another princess for her opinion."

"I'm insulted you would think to compare me with someone like that," Azula drawled. "They might call both of us princesses, but my intellect and sophistication far surpass hers. As far as I know, this crazy idea is something completely unique to your backwards culture."

Sokka did not perceptibly react to this. Was he so simple that he didn't get the insult, or did he hold her in such contempt that her opinion had no value in his eyes? Either way, it mildly vexed her.

"I figured I'd ask you," he said. "I've already gotten other female opinions—they seem fine with it, most of them. Enthusiastic, even. But I figured I'd ask a princess to give me a princess's perspective. I don't know if this is something that's normal for Yue, or if she's making a sacrifice for the rest of us. She's the kind of person who would do that."

Azula was both amused and bemused by this. There was something entertainingly preposterous about the extremity of this action. It seemed quite ridiculous for him to go to such lengths for something as meaningless as an opinion. It was a concept entirely foreign to her. Even in matters where prudence counseled leaving things in the hands of specialists, she could not help meddling and asserting herself. Humility was not something she saw as a virtue, and as a consequence it was difficult for her to consider the idea that somebody else might know better, let alone going to such a probable length of trouble simply to ask someone for advice.

She almost wanted to laugh at his absurdity.

"And what is it?" Azula asked. "What is she suggesting?"

"A... well, a harem," said Sokka lamely.

"So you _are_ here to spirit me away and make me one of your concubines," Azula said with an almost victorious tone of voice. Despite her earlier defiance, it was a modest amelioration for her ego to think he had come to take and have her.

"N-No!" Sokka spluttered. "I just mean... I wanted to know if that was normal for a princess. Something that she might want for her own sake, not just to... uh, make me happy."

Azula cocked her head.

"Why do you care?" she asked. "Do you not _want_ a harem?"

Sokka said nothing. Even with her very limited view, Azula could tell that he was blushing. She smirked.

"I don't... NOT want one," he finally conceded. "It's just, I don't think it's fair. Not to Yue. Not to the rest."

"Again," said Azula dryly. "Why do you _care?_ If she wants to give it to you, then take it. If it's something you want, take it. I don't understand all this equivocating. You're a man. Isn't your entire life's desire simply to have as many women for yourself as you can?"

"It's not like that!" he protested. "I'm not that kind of guy. I, you know, I care about women. I don't just use them, or I don't _want_ to do that. Yue and the others... they've made the offer, but I'm not sure it would really make them happy. The whole reason I'm so hesitant is because it's something that feels like such a perfect solution for me. It would work out really nice—for me. For them? I'm not so sure."

"You are incomprehensible," said Azula. "I think they must have gotten our places switched. You ought to be the one in here."

"Well, not all of us are sociopaths," said Sokka. "Some of us actually care about other people."

"So you say," said Azula. "I'm still not sure I believe you."

There were a few moments of silence that followed. Sokka and Azula stared into each other's eyes.

Finally, the latter gave a wry smile.

"You know, if I wasn't locked up," she remarked, "I think I might join those girls in offering to join your harem. Just because it makes you so uncomfortable. It really is funny."

"I'm not _uncomfortable_ ," Sokka retorted. "I just want to know—is that kind of life something a woman can be happy with?"

Azula thought for a moment. She didn't seem to be taking this very seriously, but her expression wasn't entirely one of amusement. Nor was her tone particularly sly or mocking when she finally nodded to herself and replied.

"I think so. If they're offering, they must think it will work out in their favor. Nobody is really selfless."

Sokka doubted the premise of her conclusion, but he couldn't deny that it fit nicely with what he guiltily wanted to have.

"And you say _you_ would like it, too?" he asked. "So it isn't just Yue?"

"Like it?" said Azula. "If it got me out of here, I would offer to be your sex slave. Of course, I might later decide to kill you in your sleep, but you would have at least had the honor of sleeping with the once and future Fire Lord. I might dedicate a monument to you afterwards." Her eyes gleamed. "How would an obelisk sound?"

Sokka coughed, once more uncomfortable.

"Yeah," he said. "Uh, sure. We'll see about that."

Azula laughed, and it was more than a little maniacal. Sokka no remembered that she was legitimately insane.

Well, her advice might still have a grain of merit.

He totally wasn't just making excuses to indulge himself.

* * *

A/N: Well, there's the final chapter for this year's Sokkarem Week. Hope you all enjoyed it, haha.

 **Updated:** 10-4-17

 **TTFN and R &R!**

– — ❤


End file.
